Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

description, much juvenile crime prevailed there." As is well remarked by the Prison Discipline Journal, he "was aware of the existence and character of our public institutions in Philadelphia, New York, Rochester, Westborough, &c., but evidently regarded these (useful though they are) as no part of a system. He doubtless felt that where all power is lodged in the hands of the people, all the people should be wise and virtuous enough to use it without abusing it; and he had seen enough with his own eyes in his own land to satisfy him, that this virtue and wisdom are not wrought into men and women, whose infancy and childhood are passed in sottish ignorance and brutal sensuality, and hence his natural wonder that we had not a system of early education adapted especially to the lowest grade of children and youth."

CHAPTER VIII.

EDUCATION.

THE Bible teaches us that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people;" and if ignorance be the cause of poverty and of crime, and education the means of elevating man, it is the duty of the American people to adopt more efficient means to educate the friendless and homeless, and thus stay the progress of juvenile degradation and sin. More especially is this a public duty, in a republican form of government like ours, which ought not to be neglected. "The American Republic above all others, demands from every citizen unceasing vigilance and exertions," said Judge Story, "since we have deliberately dispensed with every guard against danger or ruin, except the intelligence and virtue of the people. It is founded on the basis that the people have wisdom enough to frame their own system of government, and public spirit enough to preserve it; and that they will not submit to have them taken from them by force. We silently assumed the fundamental truth that, as it never can be the interest of the majority of the people to prostrate their own political equality, so they never can be seduced by flattery or corruption, by the intrigues of faction or the arts of ambition, to adopt any measure which shall subvert them. If this confidence in ourselves be justified, let us never forget that it can be justified only by a watchfulness and zeal proportionate to our confidence. Let us never forget that we must prove ourselves wiser and better and purer than any other nation yet has been, if we are to count on success.'

[ocr errors]

But it will be said that ample provision for the education of all has already been made, and that in no other country does there exist so perfect a system of Common Schools as in our own. This may all be so, and yet experience has shown that juvenile delinquency is rapidly on the increase, and that some further measures are necessary to arrest it. Our schools are open, it is true, to all; but it is a lamentable fact that many of the children of those who exercise no parental care over them, do not attend these schools, but grow up in ignorance, idleness, and vice, and that most of this class are children of foreigners. A brief examination of the statistics furnished by the last Census returns, will make this fact apparent.

According to the statistics of De Bow's Compendium of the United States, for 1850, there were then 9,516,538 native whites, and 1,344,346 foreigners in the United States, who were over the age of twenty; and these were found in the respective States, as follows:

[blocks in formation]

Total,.............9,516,538.....................1,344,346....................10,850,884

The number returned of those over twenty years of age, who were not able to read and write, was 982,898 whites, and 90,522 free colored : making an aggregate of 1,053,420 illiterate persons in the Union. Of these there were:

[blocks in formation]

Total,........767,784.195,114.........................................90,522..................................1,053,420

These returns show that about one-tenth of those who were over twenty years of age, including the free colored, were incapable of reading and writing, and one in every twelve of the white population. In the slave States, considerably over one-sixth of the number were thus illiterate, while in the free States only about one-sixteenth part were so. But the most remarkable feature is the proportion of foreign illiterate. In the Union it is twice that of the native; in the free States about 16 per cent.; in the slave States about 10 per cent.; whilst the proportion to the whole number of foreign is one in every seven in the United States.

According to the same returns, there were, in 1850, in the United States, 4,792,576 native whites, and 313,681 foreign whites, who were between five and fifteen years of age. Of the native whites, 3,915,620 were at school, making a percentage of 80.81 of native whites at school to those of five years and under fifteen, while the percentage of those of foreign whites at school, to those of the same age of their class, was 51.73.

These facts explain from whence the increase of juvenile delinquency comes. It may be safely assumed, that the advancement in knowledge is a fair criterion by which to judge the care and moral culture children have received, and thus judged, it must be manifest to all that to the immense foreign immigration we are indebted, to a very great extent, for the enormous juvenile vagrancy in the country. A fact worthy of notice, in this connection, was stated a year or two since by Judge Kelley, in his address at the opening of the Philadelphia House of Refuge for colored children, and it was this: "No graduate of the High School has ever been arraigned before the courts on a criminal charge; and no pupil of any public school, who had passed the third division of a Grammar school, is known to have been convicted." Bishop Potter states further, that, comparing the number of white adults who cannot read and write, adding a due proportion of colored persons and children, we shall find about one-twenty-ninth of the population who are unable to read and write. If education does not diminish crime, there should be a similar proportion found among the convicts; that is, one in twenty-nine should be unable to read, and the rest should be educated. But what is the true state of the case? One in two, instead of one in twenty-nine, are unable to read; showing that the tendency to crime among the ignorant is fourteen and a half times greater than it ought to be, on the supposition that education has no tendency to diminish crime.

Well may we adopt the language of a writer already quoted, and ask the American people "whether they intend to sit still and see this fair land gradually overrun by those giant evils that trample out the heart of Europe? Will they supinely wait till, like the Netherlands, one-fifth of the population are paupers? Has not Europe green fields and splendid palaces? Shall America rival her in these, and in her huts and filthy dens, and jails and alms-houses?

"If a rich man dies the law appoints a guardian for his children. Certainly. It ought to do so. They have property, they must be educated, they must be placed in a proper sphere-in proportion to their money— they must be fondled, and nursed, and watched.

[ocr errors]

"It would be a pity if a young man, with such bright prospects,' should become vicious; the world would wring its hands and sigh, and maudlin sympathy would drop a tear. But shall not the poor orphan

have a guardian appointed for him? You say we have 'guardians of the poor-questionable, very. These only take charge when there is no other remedy; these take the poor child to a place where he will run from bad to worse.

"The alms-house and the jail are foul blots on the face of nature, marring the beauty of God's world, covering the unsightly magnificence, the view of the church and school-house. Lay their corner-stones silently.

Build them in some secret place, and blush to own that, in free America, we boast of our prisons!

"If you do not remedy the evils I have pointed out, and take charge of the little children and inspect them in their homes, your houses of correction, alms-houses and jails will swell and increase, and will stand in massive, sombre magnificence, monuments to the folly of mankind.

"Seize, then, upon the little children. Devote your time and energies to the young, for 'just as the twig is bent the tree is inclined.' Let the respectable parent learn his or her duty, and train up the child in habits of obedience and piety. Let the community train up properly all such as, from the force of circumstances, will otherwise necessarily fall into vicious and criminal ways, and juvenile delinquency will soon cease to engage our attention."

Important, then, as it is that all the children should be educated, and receive a moral and religious training, it is no less a well-established fact that a large portion of them, principally those of foreigners, grow up without either, and become pests of society. What then is the duty of the public towards these children? It has been well observed that "it is self-evident, that if a man provides his son with a good education, and with a trade or profession, he is not likely to become a pauper, or criminal; and if, on the other hand, the unfortunate child who has lost his parents, been born out of wedlock, or has drunken, ignorant, idle, vicious parents, is sure to become a criminal, some active means should be taken to place the latter class in the same favorable position as the former. But one course is open to the community, and that is, to adopt the victim of circumstances beyond its control, teach it how to live honestly and honorably, and juvenile delinquency will be banished from the land." No one doubts the right of the community to interfere in behalf of children, to protect them from brutal treatment. That is not disputed. Why then should it not also have the right, and exercise it, to oblige parents, or if there be none, to take them in public charge, and educate the poor and neglected children? The public interests, the perpetuity of the republican institutions under which we live, imperatively demand a remedy to be applied. "We must," says the writer already frequently quoted, "set in operation a wholesome system of schools, in addition to the noble common school system now in operation. Every friend of liberty, every true reformer, every one who has the good of the country at heart, must be in favor of a method which will prostrate vice, put down rowdyism, and prevent anarchy and misrule. Who govern us when they grow up? Who make our nominations and control our elections? The rowdies. Let us, while the boy is young, curb him, that we may not suffer from his acts when he comes to man's estate." Continuing in this strain, the same writer says:

"I would call that boy or girl an orphan-de jure, if not de facto who had lost one parent, or whose parents had deserted it or were negligent of their duties. I would seize him and rear him, or her, in our public manual-labor schools. I would have guardians of public education; I would compel parents to educate their children, and in cases in which, from poverty, vice, drunkenness and neglect, one or all, children were not properly educated and trained to work, I would remove the children from the parent's custody. Shall I wait till the boy has been trained in vice? Shall I wait till he becomes a drunkard, thief, or worse? Shall I wait till the last spark of virtue has departed from the heart of the young female? till the woman is dead, and the fiend only liveth? Or, shall I provide means for preventing vice? Will public sympathy only step in-because it must do so in self-defence-when virtue and morality have departed, and vice and crime reign triumphant? I repeat the question,

"Who bids for the little children ?'

CHAPTER IX.

PAUPER AND CONVICT IMMIGRATION.

master.

LEGISLATION, to protect society against the evils growing out of the introduction into this country of foreign criminals and paupers, commenced simultaneously with the settlement of the first colonists. As early as 1639, the pilgrim settlers of Massachusetts, at Plymouth, required the removal of foreign paupers. See Colonial Charters, 1639 and '92, p. 252. And their next step was to require indemnity from the See Statute in William III. ch. 13. The same power was also early exercised by Virginia, not only to guard against the importation of paupers, but others. See Tucker's Edition Bluck. Comm., vol. ii., App. 33. So it was by other Colonies. That of Pennsylvania had, from its first settlement, a law "for imposing a duty upon persons convicted of heinous crimes and imported into the Province," and another "for laying a duty on foreigners and Irish servants, &c., imported into the Province." These were, however, repealed as early as 1729-30, and a more stringent law was passed in their stead. See Dallas' Edition of Laws of Pennsylvania, vol. i., p. 252.

Many of the Colonies continued to exercise similar powers during the Revolution, and after peace was declared. Massachusetts, by a law in

« AnteriorContinuar »